Recently I was looking at Spanish auctions and found one product related to the Avengers, about which I have not read or hear anywhere before - set for learning the English language by the series The Avengers.
This was so intriguing and same time unusual that my first thought was that this is old homemade.

The set includes 12 audiobooks (12 episodes of the series) on audio tapes and 12 brochures (teaching English).

I started looking for information about this set and found only one newspaper note, mentioning in the issues of ABC Madrid in May 1972:

Just received a message that it came to the warehouse in Germany. As usual, a few days it will be on the package (with my other item - TNA VHS from Sony) and after I will pay for shipping from Germany to Russia. _________________Russian fan-site Steedumbrella.
http://steedumbrella.ru

The long-awaited report about Spanish set "Learning the English by series The Avengers".

Despite I received this kit the day before yesterday, I decided not to rush to posting of the news and wrote an email to the seller for clarification of some points + I did some additional research on the Internet for this subject.
I received a response from the seller of this set the same day - he told me that Practiphone released other films for training in Spain and this is all he knew (here I realized that turns Practiphone was the name of "the issuer" than the name of the method of training invented by Сinelab in Spain, as I thought originally ).

Before I talk about my additional research and those questions about this item that tormented me, let to delve into the contents of the kit.

Well, I'll start by saying that when I took out a box of contents from the package that the courier delivered to my door, it seemed more tattered than on the photographs that were posted at the auction. Fortunately this only concerned box, the contents were in excellent condition, especially the audio cassettes that were sealed.

The first thing I did was check the number of brochures and audio cassettes - everything was in order - then I began to study the titles of the episodes that were included in this kit.

Here were pleasant surprises!!! Full list, in production order of episodes:

b/w episodes with Emma Peel

1. Dial a Deadly Number
2. The Gravediggers
3. Room Without a View

color episodes with Emma Peel

1. The Fear Merchants
2. From Venus with Love
3. The See-Through Man
4. The Hidden Tiger
5. Epic
6. The Joker
7. Return of the Cybernauts (title on brochure is The Cybernauts)
8. The f50,000 Breakfast (title on brochure is The Fifty Thousand Breakfast Pound)
9. Mission... Highly Improbable

My first surprise was that all the episodes belonged to the era of Emma Peel, while the box pointed to the image of Steed with Tara King.

It made me think that maybe there were other sets with the Avengers series that came out in the box with the same design. Hmm, in this case, it was possible that they would released half or almost the whole series from the Avengers film age. Definitely it would be great ... but...
as my further research showed, it was the single Avengers set (only 12 episodes) - more on that later.

Another surprise was that I did not absolute expect that there would be the episodes Epic and The Joker, in which there are many "silent" scenes. Well it is quite possible that the choice of episodes could go not only with the interest of the Practiphone for item "teaching English", but also as a pleasure for the Spanish Avengers fans.

After began the most interesting, ladies and gentlemen... when I opened one of the brochures and began to study the introduction, there was one interesting nuance that revealed a new fact about this set. Oh my Steed!

To be continue (right now I will be doing some scans for my following post titled Part 2: New puzzles).

Scans of several first pages of the brochure "The Cybernauts" (actually, episode "Return of the Cybernauts").

1. Cover

(comment: If firstly you look at the top of this cover, you can really easily be to get into "the trap". In addition to the title, the images of Steed and Emma Peel are taken from season 4 too. More, these images are present on all the other 11 brochures).

One of nice feature of all covers is that the episodes are numbered in the correct production order.

The difference in these is the larger font size that leds to reduction in information. While in general introduction presented above are 4 points in the section "Observaciones", in these two are only two.

General Introduction is as page 3 in brochure "Mission... Highly Improbable", while in the others it is the first page.

Further content of all brochures divides the pages into Spanish and English parts. Some sort of dialog sheets. Then one blank sheet (at best) at the end of each brochure. This is all!

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Individual Introduction

Each brochure contains a mention of its first release, which should say that before the release of this set with 12 episodes, there was opportunity to buy them separately. However, it is unclear whether it was possible to buy them in the store, or to buy only to order. Anyone could buy or only certain persons, etc.

Based on this, another mystery when this set of 12 episodes was released?

I found the last mention of Practiphone in the beginning of 1980 that says it should have been released somewhere in the 1970s, I think. On this time, having extremely thoroughly studied the Spanish newspapers, I found the following:

Many Thanks, Mariocki!
It was such an unexpected find, like Chinese TNA comics and the episode Tunnel of Fear.
The first thing I thought at the time I saw it at the auction "I'd want to believe that this will fall into the hands of a true collector, or Avengers fan, someone (s) who will tell others about it".
I saw the last point very important, because this item was never mentioned in any directory dedicated to the Avengers, as far as I know. This led me to the idea that I should try to buy this item putting as much money on it as I could (well, it may seem not quite sane action, but it was obvious that the find was a unique discovery). As a result, I'm still surprised that I won the auction.
Who knows what will find next time? _________________Russian fan-site Steedumbrella.
http://steedumbrella.ru

My pernickety senses are outraged by Tara being on the box cover and yet none of her episodes are featured inside.

I love these curios.

Great discovery, Denis. I admire your digging skills!

Indeed, Darren, it still surprises the error with the image on the box with the real contents in it. When I learned this, I came to the conclusion that as a whole, Practiphone went quite well to the work on this project, since it does not contain as many mistakes as it might seem. Well, considering that it started its release in 1972 (time when even the Avengers fans did not know much about the favorite series), educational institute apparently was guided by the limited knowledge of the series, which they drew probably from the Spanish Broadcasters. So while the confusion with the seasons with Emma Peel can be understood in this regard, it's not entirely clear to such an error as Tara King's image on the box.
If we assume that Linda Thorson was popular in Spain, it does not explain why in this case there are no episodes with Tara King in set.
Looks it was just a mistake from Practiphone.

It's interesting to think that part of Spain had the opportunity to study the Avengers by audiobooks and "dialog sheets" at home already in 1972.

Other thing, wonder why the project did not go beyond Madrid. I studied all the newspapers and found that Practiphone is mentioned only in some newspapers published in the capital of Spain.

Thanks for the kind words, Darren, in fact I often can not find the things that others can find. In this sense, the team of researchers is well complementary. _________________Russian fan-site Steedumbrella.
http://steedumbrella.ru

Denis

Last edited by denis rigg on Wed May 30, 2018 7:13 am; edited 1 time in total

Finally here come the answers that remained behind the scenes in the last part.

1. What audio recordings are?

I decided to check it after studying some of the brochures. I thought that the contents of the brochures could give some clue what would be an audio record, but I did not get any clues. I unpacked one of the audio cassettes and put it in my music center. The tape went from the very beginning of side A. For a while there was silence and I was excited that I would hear - whether it will the voice of the announcer, or some kind of musical introduction, or it will start as a dialogue of heroes or Spanish actors, etc. ? Well, soon the recording started and it was something very famous for the Avengers fan. Yes, it was a popular musical theme of the series. Great, good start! And... it was still unclear what would happen next after the music theme ended. Oh my Steed at this point I was intrigued even more.
Suddenly, the musical theme broke off at some point and I heard the dialogue between Steed and Mrs. Peel.
After the action came to the end of the title of the episode (which was not voiced on the audio record), I heard the voice of the announcer in English. As I understand it, he said something like "Today you are watching another episode of the series Avengers." Hmm, this created the feeling that as if the Avengers episode was taken from the broadcasts in one of the English-speaking countries. Perhaps, Spain transmitted on TV exactly these versions.
I listened to the whole audio cassette (with some rewinds), as a result, the recording was just as the cuts of the episode. Moreover, some scenes contained many dumb passes prepared for the pleasure to the Avengers fans, I think. A vivid example, the episode The Joker. While the first side of the cassette contained many cuts, the second side created the feeling that the remainder was recorded almost entirely.
This mechanically reminded me of how in 1996 I recorded The Joker on audio tape as an audiobook for the Steedumbrella society. At that time, I often listened to it - funny, so when I was listening to some music passages on the cassette from Cinelab, I nostalgically came to full confidence that I was listening to my own recording.

2. Why did I come to the conclusion that only 12 episodes were released by Practiphone?

During the research of this item I studied the website Worldcat, where I found the info about 9 brochures with audio cassettes by Cinelab.

Before I often turned to this website and noticed that this covers a huge part of merchandising. It's sad that earlier I did not guess to check this catalog on Avengers episodes to go out on this item, I just checked content by keywords Avengers in different languages and as it is known in other parts of the world. Since world catalog does not include at least one Avengers episode that is not in the Practiphone kit, it says there were released only these 12 episodes.

3. Will there be scans of all content posted on Steedumbrella website?

In coming days I will definitely create a separate section for this find on Steedumbrella and do many scans.
When I will start work, I will report.

P.S./ I still do not know whether there is any sense in digitizing these audio cassettes. _________________Russian fan-site Steedumbrella.
http://steedumbrella.ru

As planned, yesterday I finished scanning the material. Today I will start the editing of the scans, after converting most of it into PDF and finally, creating a section on Steedumbrella. For the moment I see the section as three webpages.

The first page will be an introduction to this set, including scans and photos of box and general content.

The second page will present the scans of the Spanish-language booklet and translating it into Russian. I will do a translation into English too, for posting here.

The third page will presents the contents of the box - information for each brochure (including PDF material), a summary of the episodes and scans of audio cassettes.

I hope this week I will finish this section and next we will see the scans of the booklet (including the English translation of it here) and the main page with the general characteristics of the kit.

Next, I will study the episode Never, Never Say Die for posting on Steedumbrella. And then, as promised, to do the scans of french VHS covers of TNA from Sony Music (+ the checking every episode and writting about the results here and on website).

Right now, I have finished translating only the first page of a 4-page booklet. This turned out to be very difficult, even with the use of Abbyy program - there were a lot of complicated sentences that I could not interpret correctly for a long time.
As a result, I spent most of the day on this one (fun, I thought to do the whole work today ) and at some point thought to abandon the idea - fortunately then I found a good Spanish-Russian dictionary and began to study in detail the word combinations. I corrected a lot of mistakes in my translation and now the meaning of the instruction in the booklet finally became clear to me.

I hope tomorrow will work on the translation of the second page. Translation of the first page is already posted in Russian on the site:

Given that had to correct the text many times to make it look logical and digestible, English translation of booklet below is based on my Russian translation.

(Found, this manual has one nice surprise, which undoubtedly makes a new discovery in the Avengerland. About this, at the very end of the message).

So, started:

Page 1

THE "PRACTI-PHONE" METHOD FOR IMPROVEMENT OF AUDIO-ORAL SPEECH

Comments and instructions for your best use

WHY "AUDIO" REPLACE "VIDEO"?

It is likely that you ask this question, having learned that for our audio-oral improvement practices we give priority to "audio" recording (the system is obviously less perfect than "video", where sound and image are simultaneously provided) when the base of the method is the use of films in their original version, not adapted for educational purposes.(1)

However, we have several reasons to do so. Perhaps the least technical but easier to understand is that the "audio" system can be used in any place or situation where auditory attention should not be related to visual: driving a car, traveling by bus or train, in a field or beach, cycling or jogging. It is enough to have a mini cassette player with headphones.

INTENSIVE "AUDIO" PRACTICES

The main obstacle that prevents us from mastering a foreign language , as we all think, is the chronic difficulty of being easily understood by a native inhabitant expressing himself in the usual way; that is, without having to go mentally translating every word we hear and catch up. Only the continuous listening practice will solve, at least in part, this handicap allowing the interested party to access the category of bilingual interlocutor.

UNDERSTANDING

We say in the emphasis of the previous paragraph that the intensive hearing practice is a partial solution. Indeed, it is not enough to listen, it is necessary to understand its meaning until the interpretation of the words occurs at the same time as they are heard. That is, what is commonly said to think in English [or in any other language that is studied).

ORAL EXERCISES

Until now, when referring to audio-oral exercises we have only addressed those related to the "audio" part. Here we turn to the "oral" to say that these are performed by the pupil by the simple procedure of repeating aloud the dialogs that are heard on the cassette. Periodically, at the end of each chapter or scene, if the used tape recorder has the possibility of recording (2), it will extract the cassette that is listening and, placing another one in its place, let's say of pupil, it will record in this one, with its own voice, the dialogues previously rehearsed in order to listening to itself and making corrections to pronunciation and intonation.

(1) The advanced knowledge we trust to people who wish to perfect their audio-oral capacity must, in our opinion, avoid any adaptation of the colloquial language that distorts its authenticity.

(2) Frequently our students use for their audition/comprehension practices the popular minicassettes with headphones, or radio-cassettes if they drive in a car, without possibility of recording in both cases. For this reason, oral exercises are usually done in a second cassette in which you can record.

Page 2

ESTIMATED TIME FOR AUDIO-ORAL PRACTICES

The audio-oral practice of the twelve episodes or titles that make up the course "THE AVENGERS" requires at least one year. It is assumed that the pupil will dedicate one month of practice for each episode, which would be equivalent to an average of one hour on page. There is also a record, obviously.

EVALUATION

The progress achieved by this method must be verified and directed by our teachers through audio-oral exercises with their corresponding evaluations.

PSYCHO-PEDAGOGICAL BASIS

Even though the reasons given so far to justify the priority granted by Practiphone to the use of magnetic recording for audio-oral practices are determinant, there are other psycho-pedagogical considerations that consolidate this decision. It is necessary to persistently listen to words or phrases in order to clearly understand and pronounce them correctly and fluently. This laborious exercise, being only "audio" is perfectly bearable, not happening the same if we were forced to watch the same image simultaneously and again.

THE IMPORTANCE OF "VIDEO"

It may seem that we have commented so far that we do not attach importance to the image. This is far from reality. We are convinced that the audio-visual medium is an invaluable aid in the study of languages ​​as evidenced by the fact that our method is based solely on the use of films. The only point is that the LISTENING exercises must precede the VISUAL ones since it is necessary that the pupil can understand without difficulty the dialogues that are present in the film and can pay full attention during the watching of the same to the emphasis like translators do according to the pictorial happening situation. For this reason, the "VIDEO" corresponding to the film object of practice will be delivered to the pupil as soon as he passes the audio-oral evaluations indicated in one of the previous paragraph above.

Page 3

STUDY INSTRUCTIONS

It is assumed when writing these instructions that you have enough knowledge of English acquired over two or three years of study, in which case, a large number of words contained in this series "THE AVENGERS" will be known to you when read the book-script of an episode which will lead to an erroneous the belief that these audio-oral exercises are easy to carry out for you. On the contrary, the difficulties you will encounter to understand the dialogues that you listen (audio-comprehension) would discourage you in your purposes to try to understand them if it were not because we are going to help them follow their practices in an orderly manner that will lead to positive, not to say spectacular, results.

a) As a customary rule in your future practices, never read the script before trying to re-understand the dialogues heard on the tape.

b) Do not listen to the episode from beginning to end immediately. Do not pay much attention to its content. Do it by scenes, without moving on to the next one until you have properly practiced the previous one.

c) At the same time that you listen to the dialogues that take place in the corresponding scene, try to write them down as if it were a dictation, rewinding a word or phrase that is difficult to grasp in an attempt to understand. If it does not work out, leave the blank space and continue with the exercise without worrying too much about this obstacle since those same words will be repeated later, or in another episode, expressed, perhaps, by a voice more intelligible to you.

The ease of execution of this exercise of audio comprehension through writing and its excellent results will stimulate your desire to keep going until you can understand the English language with ease. Do not destroy the written sheets afterwards since they will serve you later to control the progress you are achieving in audio-comprehension as your practices progress.

d) When performing the previous "dictation" exercise, repeat each word aloud, each heard phrase, trying to imitate its pronunciation and intonation, acquiring oral fluency through this procedure.

e) Each time you finish the practice of a scene, before beginning the next one, listen to the episode from the beginning to get acquainted with the words or phrases that were previously not understood. This exercise is very useful to achieve the ability to think in English.

f) Do not miss the opportunity to listen as much as possible to the episode that you are practicing, whether driving your car, jogging, etc.

g) When you consider an episode sufficiently practiced, you must send us a card (which we have previously provided) requesting the corresponding "VIDEO." Before sending it to you, we will send you a cassette and a questionnaire to evaluate your level of achievement. If we consider this sufficient, we will provide the requested "VIDEO".

P.S./ The surprise about which I spoke above is the reference to the fact that tirns Practiphone provided video of Avengers episodes too.

It seems that the cards they mention, by to got the requested "VIDEO", were provided to brochures and cassettes released separately. If so, it says that those who lived in Madrid could get the Avengers episodes for home watching already in the first half of the 1970s!!! That is, for the moment it looks like Spain could be the first country where you had the opportunity to watch Avengers episodes, received through the company, on home.

Here are intrigue questions:

1. Was this Super8, they provided?

2. If they first offered the service since February 1972 (release of the first set), then you could get video already somewhere in same year, by the end of 1972, I think (since they mention that the practice takes about a year - they would hardly have given it out before more than six months, at least, I think, by logic). As always, it is not known on moment when they first switched this service on.

3. It is absolutely unclear what prints were provided, and in what way Practiphone received it.